ose who had chosen such a place of
sepulchre! Those low, darksome galleries were but temporary
sleeping-places for the Christians. If they did not burn the bodies of
their dead, as the Pagans did, it was because, like the Jews, they
believed in the resurrection of the body; and it was that lovely idea of
sleep, of tranquil rest after a just life, whilst awaiting the celestial
reward, which imparted such intense peacefulness, such infinite charm, to
the black, subterranean city. Everything there spoke of calm and silent
night; everything there slumbered in rapturous quiescence, patient until
the far-off awakening. What could be more touching than those terra-cotta
tiles, those marble slabs, which bore not even a name--nothing but the
words _In Pace_--at peace. Ah! to be at peace--life's work at last
accomplished; to sleep in peace, to hope in peace for the advent of
heaven! And the peacefulness seemed the more delightful as it was enjoyed
in such deep humility. Doubtless the diggers worked chance-wise and
clumsily; the craftsmen no longer knew how to engrave a name or carve a
palm or a dove. Art had vanished; but all the feebleness and ignorance
were instinct with the youth of a new humanity. Poor and lowly and meek
ones swarmed there, reposing beneath the soil, whilst up above the sun
continued its everlasting task. You found there charity and fraternity
and death; husband and wife often lying together with their offspring at
their feet; the great mass of the unknown submerging the personage, the
bishop, or the martyr; the most touching equality--that springing from
modesty--prevailing amidst all that dust, with compartments ever similar
and slabs destitute of ornament, so that rows and rows of the sleepers
mingled without distinctive sign. The inscriptions seldom ventured on a
word of praise, and then how prudent, how delicate it was: the men were
very worthy, very pious: the women very gentle, very beautiful, very
chaste. A perfume of infancy arose, unlimited human affection spread:
this was death as understood by the primitive Christians--death which hid
itself to await the resurrection, and dreamt no more of the empire of the
world!

And all at once before Pierre's eyes arose a vision of the sumptuous
tombs of the Appian Way, displaying the domineering pride of a whole
civilisation in the sunlight--tombs of vast dimensions, with a profusion
of marbles, grandiloquent inscriptions, and masterpieces of
sculptured-work.